disk 4
2005-07-04 12_44.wav - supermarket 6.8 Mb
2005-07-04 12_44(1).wav - supermarket talking in background 11.7 Mb
2005-07-04 13_16.wav - squacking bird, too windy 3.1 MB 19s
2005-07-04 13_16(1).wav - quiet a few birds 22.1 Mb ** (speaking at very end)
2005-07-04 13_20.wav - cleaning up sounds 14.4 Mb ** (speaking at very end)
2005-07-04 14_23.wav - bbq little wind at start 22.2 Mb *** good for radio (speaking at very end)
2005-07-04 14_25.wav - clearing sticks train in the middle 66.6 Mb * really high pitched sounds
2005-07-04 17_21.wav - town and country 19.2 Mb
2005-07-04 17_58(1).wav - windmill and laughing *** good for radio
2005-07-04 18_01.wav - cars and windmills (a touch of wind) 23.1 Mb ** bit windy, maybe ok
2005-07-04 18_37.wav - rustling birds wind at end 8.3 Mb windy
2005-07-04 18_39.wav - flies, cars, rumble 13.2 Mb *** good for radio (speaking at very end)
2005-07-04 19_38(1).wav - talk, fireworks, some wind in middle 20.4 Mb *** (speaking at very end)
2005-07-04 20_11.wav - klang klang wind at start and end 17.5 Mb windy
2005-07-04 20_13.wav - drips and wind mill 11.2 Mb ** make into loop cut before beeps at end
2005-07-04 20_57.wav - mdstartup noise, long approach car, some birds 18.8 Mb windy
2005-07-04 21_10(1).wav - v quiet. metal tinking. birds. cow at end pinto canyon road 18.4 Mb **
(speaking at very end)
2005-07-04 21_14.wav - cows, birds insect, stone throwing 31.3 Mb *** (speaking at very end)
2005-07-04 21_38.wav - bad sound in car, car door, after dusk at pinto canyon, cars passing 52 MB
5m10s *** edit down start
2005-07-04 22_23.wav - town and country after dark, train passing 27.7MB 2m45s
2005-07-05 06_51.wav - windy then quiet then windy luna at the arroyo, dogs and roosters, distant
highway 53.9MB 5m21s
2005-07-05 06_59.wav - amber at luna on the last morning, birdies chirping, roosters 25.3MB 2m31s
wind
2005-07-05 07_26.wav - Ben at luna on the last morning, birdies, dogs, roosters, crickets 32.2MB
3m12s  *** (speaking at very end) radio too
2005-07-05 7_37.wav - Burros and pissing and and crickets and a truck at luna 58.7MB 5m49s  ***
(speaking at very end) radio too
2005-07-05 9_11.wav - footsteps and birds, beautiful, quiet metal banging 14.7MB 1m28s ** wind
through
2005-07-05 9_13.wav - good cars passing rockshop, quiet, 14.2MB 1m25s ** edit off start
2005-07-05 9_14.wav - GOOD TRUCK (topped out) 11.8MB 1m11s
2005-07-05 9_16.wav - seven minutes of perfection, am at rockshop 73.6MB 7m18s **** fade in and out
2005-07-05 9_23.wav - one minute of perfection, am at rockshop ** a little wind
2005-07-05 9_32.wav - truck at rockshop 9.2MB 55s
2005-07-05 9_57.wav - Good! train tracks by the drug blimp 54.8MB 5m25s
2005-07-05 11_54.wav - annoying mexican radio broadcast 45.7MB 4m32s 

disk 3
2005-09-13 19_01.wav - TALKING the fear is that the train was going away 13.7MB 1m22s
2005-09-13 19_02.wav - TALKING I don't hear anything. 1m22s
2005-09-13 19_02(1).wav - TALKING and cars 7m17s
2005-09-13 19_02(2).wav - drunk and under the shirt, beer bottles 5m07s
2005-09-13 19_03.wav - nowheresville 18s
2005-09-13 19_03(1).wav - redford dog story 1m48s
2005-09-13 19_03(2).wav - junk 02s
2005-09-13 19_03(3).wav - blather 1m45s
2005-09-13 19_04.wav - this is the train, shh 5m56s
2005-09-13 19_04(1).wav - crickets, cars, listening from trestle, some wind, scratchy 5m45s

disk 2
2005-07-03 13_31.wav - judd 2m09s
2005-07-03 13_52.wav - footsteps, crunching at chinati, wind ~2m *** radio cut wind
2005-07-03 14_29.wav - inside artillery shed at chinati 1m53s *** radio cut talkk at very end
2005-07-03 14_35.wav - inside artillery, joey speaking 21s
2005-07-03 15_35.wav - what are you recording? crap 1m30s
2005-07-03 15_57.wav - boring 1m24s
2005-07-03 16_07.wav - joey braiding hair 1m07s
2005-07-03 19_24.wav - rays are supermarket 1m28s
2005-07-03 21_54.wav - wind 28s
2005-07-03 22_17.wav - 3m of crickets, then rest yapping 7m14s
2005-07-03 22_30.wav - loud, boring crickets with wind 49s
2005-07-03 22_30(1).wav - loud crickets and cars under trestle 2m20s
2005-07-03 22_43.wav - more crickets and cars under trestle 3m20s
2005-07-03 23_18.wav - this is the train from ben's mic 5m43s
2005-07-03 23_44.wav - crickets and cars again (plus one dooley) and some wind 1m14s
2005-07-03 23_45.wav - crickets, crickets and a car 1m23s
2005-07-04 00_08.wav - mumbling at the marfa lights and a truck or two 3m26s
2005-07-04 00_27.wav - luna crickets, foosteps and Lalito's engine 12m45s

disk 1
2005-09-13 18_22(1).wav - wmbr 8s
2005-09-13 18_22(1).wav - wmbr
2005-09-13 18_23.wav - wmbr
2005-09-13 18_23(1).wav - wmbr
2005-09-13 18_23(2).wav - rockshop rustling not so crappy but crappy
2005-09-13 18_23(3).wav - testing rockshop 15s
2005-09-13 18_23(4).wav - birdies and cars ar rockshop; some wind but not bad especially at the
end, train horn in distance 5m20s
2005-09-13 18_24.wav - wind 8s
2005-09-13 18_24(1).wav - lots of wind and drops of rain on tin and rustling, cars 1m27s
2005-09-13 18_24(2).wav - wind. metal.
2005-09-13 18_26.wav -  nothing
2005-09-13 18_26(1).wav - rain and thunder. nice a bit short
2005-09-13 18_26(2).wav - rain and thunder.
2005-09-13 18_26(3).wav - thunder and rain.
2005-09-13 18_26(4).wav - wind. birds. laughing. "hello"
2005-09-13 18_26(5).wav - rustle rustle. wind.
2005-09-13 18_27.wav - wind and rustle. then quiet rooster. then more wind.
2005-09-13 18_27(1).wav - boring.
2005-09-13 18_27(2).wav - trying to record the train. *** radio
2005-09-13 18_27(3).wav - glitch
2005-09-13 18_27(4).wav - train horn bad wind in middle.
2005-09-13 18_27(5).wav - rustle. late night fire talking.
2005-09-13 18_28.wav - aroya. wind and mic knocking.
2005-09-13 18_28(1).wav - long windy walk through aroyo
2005-09-13 18_29.wav - frogs and crickets 20s of good then windy
2005-09-13 18_29(1).wav - slow fade in and out. crickets and aroyo
2005-09-13 18_30.wav -
2005-09-13 18_30(1).wav -
2005-09-13 18_30(2).wav - rock shop birds

short wind:
2005-07-04 12_44(1).wav
2005-07-04 17_58.wav
2005-07-05 9_12.wav
2005-07-05 9_56.wav - crunching, walking and wind 10.5MB 1m03s

short speaking:
2005-07-04 18_45.wav - throwing rocks 18 Mb
2005-07-04 22_55.wav - luna "what are you thinking- of painting the house white?" 9.1 MB 55s

bad:
2005-07-04 18_21.wav - banging headphones test
2005-07-04 19_38.wav - nothing
2005-07-04 21_10.wav - not much 2.2 Mb

Document this challenge

A blog post. Include your level game code so that others can try your level.

Taking it further

• Go back to BitFontMaker and try making a complete pixel font with lower and upper case letters and punctuation. The more complete your font, the more useful it will be to you and other people.
• Have a look at some of the ’self-playing’ Super Mario levels fans have made. Can you make a level that is predominantly a form of entertainment like a comedy or music video, rather than a playable game.
• Look at Cal Henderson’s guide to making a full pixel font using dedicated software. Fontforge is the free, opensource font creation package. Make your own font.

Background

Pixels now feel ‘retro’ and ‘digital’ when used in graphics design. This is because for a while small numbers of pixels and colour choices is all people had to make game graphics and computer typography. Now that these constraints are no longer necessary, pixel design is just another stylistic choice that you can make when looking for inspiration. Some examples of pixel art being used creatively in a modern context include the work of the eboy collective and Craig Robinson’s MiniPops on FlipFlopFlyin.

Pixel font design started out as a way to try and best replicate traditional printed type on screen. Over time, typographers have continued to explore how much style and readability can be conveyed with as few pixels as possible.

Most platform games were built at a time when game ‘roms’ could only store a small number of pixel sprites. To get round this, they built complex levels by repeating a small number of functional tiles.

Game engines can be used for aesthetic experiments and as an art form. Cory Arcangel’s Super Mario Clouds is a good example of this – a hacked mario game cartridge with all of the sprites removed apart from the clouds.

Ubu is much more in keeping with their sharing attitude – I was always surprised their videos were not archived on the web.

error: malloc.h: No such file or directory

osx does not support malloc.h, instead use stdlib.h. I did this by replacing #include <malloc.h> in all the .c files with:

#if !defined(__APPLE__)
#include <malloc.h>
#else
#include <stdlib.h>
#endif

Missing libraries:
error: sndfile.h: No such file or directory

I installed this library using macports:
sudo port install libsndfile

And then added the paths to macports libraries to the Makefile:

INCLUDE = -I/opt/local/include
LIBRARY  = -L/opt/local/lib

I’ve been eyeing up the fresh mussels in the supermarket for a while now, so this seemed a good chance to give them a go. I went with the recipe on the packet: 1. clean beards and any dead mussels out. 2. add mussels, 1/3rd bottle white wine, 1/3 block of butter, a small carrot, leek, celery and onion – all chopped small, black pepper, bay leaf to a big pan. 3. with the lid on, bring to a boil over a high heat, and steam for 5 mins. 4. spoon out mussels and then reduce stock before pouring over.

Not quite the traditional Cornish cooking method I’m sure, but tasty all the same. Speaking of which, does anyone know the traditional UK ways to cook mussels?

Cooked porridge in homage to Meal Monday (traditionally the second Monday in February):

During the 17th century, Scottish university students lived in very basic accommodation and were required to bring their own fuel, faggots or peat, to maintain a fire. Their diet was meagre too, largely consisting of oatmeal, which they would make into porridge. … As the students’ country homes or farms were some distance from the city Universities, an occasional long weekend was scheduled to permit them to replenish their supplies.

I jumped between a number of similar recipes while cooking these. What you end up with is a moist muffin with overtones of almond, cardamom and rum. The raspberry jam and lemon icing are a tasty addition too.

I’ve eaten two this evening already, cos I can’t wait until breakfast. And yes, I know, these are a day late, but there was no chance of concerted baking on a Friday.

If you want to know what Runeberg’s poetry sounds like, there’s a short recording of Rakastava as part of a multilingual librivox poetry collection.

At the start of the year I had the idea of trying to appropriate as many festivals as I could, preferable ones involving food. I’m a big fan of those small celebrations unique to one place or community, like the tomato fight in Buñol in Valencia, and this is really an exercise in trying to seek more traditions of that sort out.  I thought I’d test the idea out on the month of February. So I sat down with wikipedia’s list of observances and drew up a calendar of possible days. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Included visits to We Love Technology, Lovebytes, V&A’s Decode, The Story and the Guardian Changing Media Summit, as well as a range of support and discussion sessions and a £1,500 development award to buy in expert consultancy to develop ideas.